


she'd bathed in grey and withered and died but like the sun she'll come alive

by beatricelacy



Category: Home Fires (UK TV)
Genre: F/F, references to alison's suicide attempt, soulmarks AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9596102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatricelacy/pseuds/beatricelacy
Summary: Alison has always been very content, if that’s the right word for it. She’s not really sure any more, and even less sure of late, because that would suggest she was happy which, she supposes, she isn’t really, but she’s always been steady in her feelings, and the mark on her arm is testament to that. (Soulmarks au!)





	

**Author's Note:**

> this was one of my other prompts for the fic exchange in the summer that I wrote but it's shorter than I wanted it to be and slightly angsty so I didn't want to submit it for the exchange, but I just found it and decided to post it here.

Alison has always been very content, if that’s the right word for it. She’s not really sure any more, and even less sure of late, because that would suggest she was happy which, she supposes, she isn’t really, but she’s always been steady in her feelings, and the mark on her arm is testament to that. It’s one small, neat scar for George. It used to be black like a slash of night across her wrist that she used to stroke gently, carefully, back in the days when she was pretending to be Mrs Scotlock and George had gone away. Everyone knows how the marks work – black if your love is requited, red if unrequited, and a scar if the one you loved has since died. Alison would stroke the mark like a talisman all through 1914, 1915, 1916, trying not to think about what would happen if one day she woke up and the scar had changed. She thought that somehow if she touched the mark, deepened the black with the ink from the tips of her fingers, George would somehow be alright. She’ll never forget the moment it did change, when she was washing up one day and as she plunged her hands into the soapy water there was a sudden pull, and as she drew her hands out in shock the scar sitting gloatingly, neatly where the black should have been. She strokes the scar still sometimes and swallows down her grief. She’s never even had a hint of another mark, and she’s perfectly comfortable with it being that way.

Then when war breaks out and suddenly she’s sharing her house with someone else, another woman, Teresa – Teresa and her smile like sunshine, her dark lipstick and flashes of white teeth, her print dresses and the bold red cardigan that Alison only realises covers a defiant black mark when she accidentally bumps into her on her way from the bathroom one night. Teresa looked at Alison warily but Alison didn’t say anything, no matter how curious she was actually feeling – Teresa had never mentioned any man and she wore no ring, but Alison knows all about keeping things hidden and so she dropped her eyes and kept her mouth shut. After all, she reckoned, as she drew her blankets up in bed around her, it was none of her business.

Connie visits in the summer and she and Teresa walk out across the fields arm in arm. Alison’s scar burns and she wonders what Connie’s coat sleeves are hiding. But again, she thinks, it’s none of her business, none of her business. She found a peculiar red mark on her arm last night when she was putting the milk bottles out and she moved her hand to shake back her hair as she straightened up, gazing out through the trees. She touched it faintly, puzzled. Probably just a scratch. Best to just ignore it.

Yet hardly a week later Teresa is carried home to Alison’s fire side when she collapses in the village, and Alison rushes to her side, fussing her, making her tea, helping her out of her coat and cardigan. Teresa was limp with grief and flopped against Alison, her long pale arms shaking. She all but falls into the arm chair and Alison tucks a blanket round her knees – Teresa can barely look at her, her eyes swollen up with tears and Alison’s eyes fall, suddenly, beyond their will, to the black mark on Teresa’s arm that is suddenly so conspicuously a scar. She draws back momentarily and her eyes meet with Teresa’s which are full of fear, her own in shock, and then in understanding. Alison nods and strokes the mark gently. Teresa does not need to fear, does not need to worry about Alison casting her out in this world. The mark says enough and it all. Alison knows about keeping things hidden.

(Still, Alison rubs her scratch on her right arm later that night, her lips taut with worry. It seems to be burning brighter than ever. She’s worn long sleeves for two weeks now.)

Time went on, and with it life, and Alison was slipping, slipping further into misery. She looks at the mess around her, and she doesn’t know what she’s done, what she’s doing, how she can get of it. The red scratch on her arm has not gone away now; she knows what it means, and it kills her, it kills her. She looks at Teresa who smiles still, somehow, despite the scar, despite all that’s happened, and she can’t bear it, not when she thinks about what she’s done with the money, what a mess she’s made of everything.

It’s autumn when she decides to do it and she scratches the back of her neck awkwardly, chewing on her lip. She doesn’t know what else to do. She doesn’t want to do it, and she’s sorry, so sorry. Fingers quivering slightly, ever so slightly, she turns the oven on, and then tries to forget as she sits down in her chair. She’s going to go to sleep.

She floats.

Alison floats.

Next thing she knows everything is harsh and loud and bright and fast and too real and she’s retching and choking and blinking in the sunlight, mud on her knees and scratches on her palms and the most acrid taste in her mouth and nose and Teresa is there, Teresa, sobbing and clutching at her, pulling her up and out and onward and Alison rolls gaspingly into the grass, her legs not strong enough, and when Teresa reaches out to grab her but is a moment too late and ends up snatching only at a whisk of yellow cardigan. It falls off and Alison scrambles to hide it, to hide the mark, the red, but not before Teresa sees and Alison’s gaze falls to a red mark next to the scar on Teresa’s arm in amazement, and they gaze at each other for a moment, lost in truth and bewilderment as both marks, as though reacting to sunlight, fade to black.

 

 


End file.
